1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to thermal management in general, and in particular to thermal management on electronic devices. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing thermal management on high-power integrated circuit devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Integrated circuit devices generally dissipate more heat as their performances increase, which can increase the operating temperature of the integrated circuit devices. Such a problem is becoming more acute as the size of silicon chips become larger yet the sizes of the electronic components within the silicon chips approach nanometer scale.
The prior art methods of integrated circuit cooling typically employ conduction and convection cooling at a device level by attaching a heatsink to one of the surfaces of an integrated circuit device, and ambient air is forced over the heatsink to carry heat away from the heatsink. The prior art methods of integrated circuit cooling were effective when chip powers were uniformly distributed with a total of less than one watt, but are no longer effective as chip powers exceed five watts and are generally focused in very small areas at a circuit level.
To effectively cool small regions of an integrated circuit device at a circuit level under the above-mentioned power conditions using traditional methods of integrated circuit cooling would require such an over-design in the rest of the silicon chip that it becomes too impractical to implement. Consequently, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus for providing thermal management on high-power integrated circuit devices.